


Crema Verse Prompt Fill #22

by twobirdsonesong



Series: Crema Verse [25]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Barista Blaine, Crema verse, Drabble, Established Relationship, Fashion & Couture, M/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-15 22:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/854640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twobirdsonesong/pseuds/twobirdsonesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>aspiringtoeloquence asked you:  Okay. Trying to keep this as open to interpretation as possible, but someone not realizing who Blaine is at one of Kurt’s events (with either an overly friendly or overly thoughtless connotation). Or vice-versa (at one of Blaine’s events).</p><p>Warning: Sebastian Smythe makes an appearance. Feel free not to read this if the mere sight of him upsets you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crema Verse Prompt Fill #22

It doesn’t matter how many of these events Blaine has attended over the years, he’s never gotten used to them.  He doesn’t think he ever will.  It’s loud and the lights are bright.  There are too many people kissing ass, too many people trying to get something from someone else for them to ever be enjoyable.  They’re called parties or galas, and sometimes they’re even called fundraisers, but really, they’re just networking events.  Sure, they’re generally in celebration of someone who maybe deserves it.  But everyone knows that people come to these things to shake hands and get phone numbers and pass around business cards that more often than not will end up in someone’s recycling bin.  And Blaine hates it.

He’s never quite at ease enough when he’s fingered some product through his hair – longer than ever and probably longer than fashion dictates is proper, but it’s what makes him happy.  He’s uncomfortable in the suit or tux he has to put on, even though it’s always made by Kurt’s own two hands and fits him perfectly.  Blaine remains tense and nervous even when Kurt sticks close to his side and holds his hand and rubs soothing fingers across his lower back.  His heart beats too fast and his skin feels too tight.  His tongue gets heavy and slow in his mouth and he agonizes over every word he has to say, and generally it’s more words than he wants to.

Blaine feels like a drag, sometimes, the way he spends as much time as he can at his designated table, sipping a drink, and generally being a complete and utter wallflower.  Kurt is so open and effortless at these things.  He smiles and laughs and cracks jokes and makes everyone love him at first sight.  He is bright and effervescent and so full of life that sometimes Blaine feels like he needs to shade his eyes from the mere sight of him.  He hates how there are still times when that haunting feeling of unworthiness creeps up along his spine.  He hates how sometimes he catches a glimpse of Kurt out of the corner of his eye and everything is Kurt and the breadth of his shoulders and the dimples of his smile.  Kurt, who will always be the best thing that will ever happen to him.

Blaine would rather be curled up on the couch with Pav and Kurt and whichever shitty reality TV shows Kurt’s randomly into that month.  Though Blaine did love the cooking spree Kurt was on the other year, even if his waistline paid the price until he figured out that he didn’t exactly need thirds of everything they baked.  He’d rather be hunched over his piano with his notes and the touch-familiar keys and the verses he’s still trying to craft about the precise color of Kurt’s eyes when he wakes in the morning and the sun is in his hair and the world is in his sleepy-sweet smile.

Blaine never feels as though he belongs at these functions, even, and most perhaps especially, when they’re for him. 

“Hey, yeah.  Can I get another glass of champagne here?” 

Blaine turns at the sound of the exasperated, strangely familiar voice that comes from his side.

There is a man standing behind him.  He’s tall - taller than Kurt - and whipcord thin. He would be attractive if it weren’t for the impatient curve of his mouth and the blatant dismissal in his eyes.  He’s dressed in a fine, well-tailored suit, though not as fine as Blaine’s, and his hair is styled to within an inch of its highlighted life.  His features are oddly familiar, but the flashing lights of the party cast shifting shadows across his face and it’s impossible for Blaine to place him.

And he’s holding an empty champagne flute; he’s holding it out to Blaine.

“You must be mistaken,” Blaine grits out.  His hackles are raised and his blood pressure is rising already; it surges hot and angry in his veins and makes him unsteady. “I’m not a waiter.”

Blaine says it as politely, as diplomatically as he can, but there’s no way he could be mistaken for a waiter.  Not tonight.  He knows his face isn’t as famous or well-known as Kurt’s, or god forbid Cooper’s, but the cut of his tux and the expensive sheen of the fabric of his tie alone names him  _not-waiter_.  This man, this stranger, said it on purpose, to see what his reaction would be.  Blaine spent enough time in high school getting belittled, taking comments just like that behind his back and to his face, to know that  _reacting_  won’t do any good.  But he feels his jaw clench and his fists tighten nevertheless; if the Double Old Fashioned glass breaks in his hand, he’ll bleed on the cuff of his one-of-a-kind suit and that won’t improve his night at all. 

“Ah, my mistake,” the man says with a careless shrug.  “No offense.”

It’s not inherently offensive, but Blaine has suffered enough years of his life serving others that it’s practically become second nature to him and he hates that.  He hates how he almost,  _almost_  instinctively reached out for the flute.  His fingers had twitched for it.  At Starbucks, if he didn’t take the empty for-here cups from his customers’ hands, they would set them down in the middle of the counter where Blaine needed the room for new drinks.  Or worse, they’d throw them carelessly into the trash as if they were paper and plastic.  And at home, after his mother left, after the first plate was dashed to the floor, Blaine was so quick to pick up after himself and his father that the meal was hardly cleared from the dishes before Blaine had them in the sink.

It’s not that he doesn’t like to serve people now that he’s out of the apron.  He’s more than happy to take Burt’s empty coffee mug from his hand and replace it with a new one before Burt even starts to get up for a refill.  He’s always careful to leave enough room in the mug so Burt won’t accidentally spill any on himself.  The gruff  _thanks, son_ he always gets in return is more than enough and it makes his heart swell so big it hurts.  There are pieces of him that are still broken, and may always be, but every clap of Burt’s heavy hand on his shoulder, every birthday card he gets in the mail, every time Burt calls him  _son_  and means it smoothes the jagged edges of the shards and pushes them a little closer to sealed. 

And Blaine likes to tip more wine into Kurt’s near-empty glass on those nights when they let themselves have a few drinks.  They’re getting a little older, and there’s nothing fun about a hangover when you’ve got rehearsals at 7am or a deadline to meet.  Or maybe he’s just anticipating sucking the heady taste of grapes and dirt and sunlight from Kurt’s tongue.  Fuck, he doesn’t even mind slapping a fresh water bottle into Cooper’s hand when his brother has been out running or training for a stunt for a movie or just generally being an idiot.

But to have it expected of him, like he’s worth nothing more than an empty champagne glass, makes Blaine’s stomach clench and his heart pound.  It reaches down into part of him that still believes he’s unworthy – that dark, niggling little fissure of insecurity beneath the blanket of confidence that’s been slowly knit together by Kurt’s hands and belief and love.

“None taken,” Blaine responds finally.  He wants to disappear back into the shadows.  He wants to turn on his heel and find Kurt in the crowd and sink into the endless comfort of his presence.  He wants to go home to his dog and his husband and his bed.

“I’m Sebastian.”  The man extends a hand out to Blaine and Blaine’s skin crawls to shake it.  “Sebastian Smythe.”

Blaine bites his lower lip and grips the hand in his as the name finally triggers recognition of the face.

Sebastian is an up-and coming actor in the musical theatre world.  He’s good; Blaine can’t deny that, all long lines and easy grace, even if his voice could still use some work projecting.  But he hasn’t yet landed  _the role_  that will make him a star.  Blaine imagines that’s why he’s here tonight; it’s the right place if he wants to make connections with industry insiders.

“So who are you, if you’re not a waiter?”

“I’m,” Blaine begins to say, but Sebastian cuts him off.

“It’s a shame, really, because I could use another drink.  These things are always so dull, aren’t they?  I’m just here to press the flesh, as it were.  It’s a tough business and we all have to do what we have to do, don’t we?  I’m hoping to catch this Blaine Anderson, he’s the one this little shindig is for, in case you didn’t know.”  Sebastian’s eyes slide past Blaine and scan the room, obviously looking for the person he’s expecting Blaine to be.

“I’m hoping to meet him, let him know who I am.  He’s not the most important person to get connected with, of course.  It’s not like he’s the casting director or anything – but he’s working with some big names all of a sudden and I want to let him know I’m available.”

“Well,” Blaine says, and it’s all he can do not to laugh.  “He’s bound to be around here.  This party is for his show, after all.”  There’s a wild kind of victory rising up inside of him, and if this is what self-assurance feels like, then he likes it.

“It’s the only reason I’m here,” Sebastian says, and he finally deigns to look back over.  “You never gave me your name.”

“It’s Blaine,” he says, and he takes a slow sip of his Old Fashioned.  His eyes never leave Sebastian’s over the rim of the glass.  The alcohol slides, bright and burning, across his tongue and it tastes of a new kind of confidence.

Blaine watches with a vicious sort of satisfaction that he’s really not used to as all the color drains from Sebastian’s smirking face and his eyes go comically wide. 

“Blaine Anderson.  And you’re Sebastian Smythe.  I’ll be sure to remember it.”  Blaine turns on his heel then and begins to walk away.  His nerves are thrumming and he can hardly hear anything over the pounding of his blood in his ears.  His breath is coming too shallow and too fast and he’s eager to find Kurt and hopefully slow the dizzying pace of his heart.  That was a confrontation, something he hasn’t had in, well, ever.  He doesn’t think he likes it.

But he pauses and looks back over his shoulder.  He needs to say one last thing.

“I’ll send a waiter your way, shall I?”


End file.
